• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

A collection of scriptural meditations from Saints and Fathers of the Church.

If you love to enjoy true and complete delight from the Scriptures, seek to read them not merely with simple understanding, but with deeds and practical realities. Moreover, seek to read them not merely for the mere love of learning but also for the sake of ascetic endeavors & discipline, as St. Mark wrote: 'Read the words of Holy Scripture with an eye to practical applications and not merely to be puffed up by any fine thought that you may receive from it.' Another Father said: 'This is why the lover of knowledge must also be a lover of discipline. For knowledge alone does not give light to a lamp.'

One should nourish the soul with the word of God: for the word of God, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, is angelic bread, by which are nourished souls who hunger for God. Most of all, one should occupy oneself with reading the New Testament and the Psalter, which one should do standing up. From this there occurs an enlightenment in the mind, which is in the mind, which is changed by a Divine change.

The zeal which wishes to destroy great evil without appropriate preparation is a great evil in itself.

The Holy Fathers teach us how to become familiar with the Gospel, how to read it and how to understand it, what helps and what opposes its understanding. Therefore, at first you must devote more time to reading the Holy Fathers...

Just as the most bitter medicine drives out poisonous things, so prayer joined to fasting drives evil thoughts away.

He who fears God will pay careful attention to his soul and will free himself from communion with evil.

Whoever is experienced in the spiritual interpretation of Scripture knows that the simplest passage is of a significance equal to that of the most abstruse passage, and that both are directed to the salvation of man.

The belly when filled with all kinds of food gives birth to seeds of wantonness, nor can the mind, when choked with the weight of food, keep the guidance and government of the thoughts. For not only is drunkenness with wine wont to intoxicate the mind, but excess of all kinds of food makes it weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear contemplation. The cause of the overthrow and wantonness of Sodom was not drunkenness through wine, but fullness of bread. Hear the Lord rebuking Jerusalem through the prophet. 'For how did thy sister Sodom sin, except in that she ate her bread in fullness and abundance?' (Ezek. xvi. 49)

Along with an evil thought, a hostile power enters into us, and then the soul is clouded, and evil thoughts harass her.

Holy Scripture is presented to the mind’s eye like a mirror in which the appearance of our inner being can be seen.

The garment of your soul must shine with the whiteness of simplicity.

A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scripture, will refer everything to himself and not to another.

Reading the scriptures is a great safeguard against sin.

Walk before God in simplicity, and not in subtleties of the mind. Simplicity brings faith; but subtle and intricate speculations bring conceit; and conceit brings withdrawal from God.

As a cloud veils the light of the moon, so the vapors of the belly banish the wisdom of God from the soul.

Live simply and God will not leave you...

Ignorance of the scriptures is a precipice and a deep abyss.

Blessed are those who, from love of God, have girded their loins with unquestioning simplicity for this sea of suffering, and who do not turn back.

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Parish

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Archangel Michael Orthodox Church
5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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[email protected]
440-526-5192 (Phone)